 Alright folks, I have to talk about something that has been eating away at me since I watched the vice presidential debate and even though I don't necessarily think that Kamala did a bad job, I think her performance was fine. She did what she needed to and this debate overall isn't going to move the needle in either direction but something that happened at that debate, I think that it demonstrates a bigger issue with Democrats and it is that they always walk into the right wing traps that Republicans set for them every single time. They are easily duped by a Republican who speaks confidently and uses a specific tone to imply that something they support or don't support is inherently wrong. So for example at the debate, fracking came up and Mike Pence somehow put Kamala Harris on the defensive because he claims she wants to ban fracking. Now wanting to ban fracking isn't just the popular position, it's the right position to have given that we are facing climate catastrophe in 10 years according to the IBCC if we don't take action. So banning fracking is right but what did Kamala Harris do when Mike Pence said you guys want to ban fracking? She immediately bought into that right wing frame and went on the defensive when Mike Pence should be the one on the defensive. She argued we don't want to ban fracking, he then says you support the Green New Deal. Now Joe Biden doesn't support the Green New Deal. This is not how you play politics and this is why Republicans in spite of having a platform that is deeply unpopular according to public opinion polls, they still get so many political and electoral victories. It's because of things like this. Now as AOC pointed out on Twitter, fracking is bad actually, yeah, instead of saying I don't want to ban fracking and getting defensive, it's okay to say fracking is bad actually. In fact, why does Kamala Harris automatically have to be the one to defend herself even if they don't want to ban fracking, I wish they did, but why is she playing defense when it should be Mike Pence who's playing defense, but instead he was playing offense. The issue of climate change came up and I'm thankful that it was debated on a national platform but Mike Pence doesn't even believe in anthropogenic climate change. There shouldn't be a single moment on that subject where he's playing offense. He should be the one playing defense the entire time. Kamala Harris needed to replicate the strategy that he was using, emulate his tone and say, Vice President, you don't even believe that climate change is real. Vice President, you don't even want to ban fracking when it's incredibly popular. Vice President, you don't even support a Green New Deal when the overwhelming majority of Americans support it in spite of the misinformation that your party has been spreading about it. You have 10 years left to act. Explain to the American people why you don't want to do anything about climate change, why you don't want there to be a future for the viewer's grandchildren and their children. Explain yourself, but instead she explained herself and it's because Democrats are horrible at politics. Now again, I don't believe that Kamala Harris lost this debate. I don't believe her performance was poor, but this was one of the lowlights with regard to her performance aside from her fumbling when she wouldn't answer the question about Supreme Court backing. But it's not just good policy to support a ban on fracking, it's good politics. Now Democratic Party strategists would probably disagree with that statement and say, look, if you want to win this election, if you want to make sure we defeat Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden cannot support an outright ban on fracking. Take what you get. Kamala Harris has previously said she supports a ban on hydraulic fracking, but last night she used the vice presidential debate to reiterate Joe Biden's promise that a Biden-Harris administration would not move to halt the fossil fuel extraction technique even as scientists warn that it is a driver of climate change. This pledge made while Harris' own state is experiencing a climate-intensified gigafire has been depicted by national reporters as savvy and smart politics for a Democratic ticket that supposedly must embrace fracking in order to win the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania. There's just one problem with that storyline. It isn't substantiated by empirical data. Indeed, the idea that a fracking ban is political poison in Pennsylvania is a fantastical tale fabricated by a national press corps that refuses to let public opinion data get in the way of fossil fuel propaganda and a manufactured narrative. A January poll of Pennsylvania voters from Franklin and Marshall University found that more believe the environmental risks, 49 percent, of natural gas drilling outweigh the economic benefits than believe the economic benefits outweigh the environmental risks at 38 percent. The same poll found that more registered voters, 48 percent, favor a ban on hydraulic fracking than oppose it at 39 percent. An August CBS YouGov poll found that 52 percent of Pennsylvania voters support a fracking ban that includes not only a big majority of Democratic voters, but also strong majorities among traditional swing voters, 62 percent of self-identified moderate voters and 55 percent of registered independent voters support a ban. A separate August survey by the Global Strategy Group and Climate Power 2020 found that 50 percent of Pennsylvania voters have an unfavorable view of the fracking industry while 32 percent have a favorable view with a large majority supporting a phase out of fracking. The numbers were even worse for fracking industry CEOs who were viewed favorably by 21 percent of Pennsylvania voters and unfavorably by 53 percent of voters. The same survey found large majority supporting tough restrictions on fracking and phasing all of it out in the future. So fracking is unpopular, even in states like Pennsylvania. So that was a very, very huge missed opportunity and I'm sitting here like scratching my head trying to figure out how Kamala thinks this is a good idea, but like I don't want to just harp away on Kamala Harris because it's not just her who does this. At the first presidential debate, we saw Joe Biden run away from socialized health care, that big boogeyman that Donald Trump invoked, and Joe Biden was so afraid to even sound remotely progressive on the issue of health care reform, he wouldn't even commit to a public option. Now he claims that that's part of his platform, but at that debate, he says, look, I want to expand the Affordable Care Act and I think he referenced the public option, but what he explained did not sound like a public option. So he was so afraid to say I support a public option. I want a public option is incredibly popular. Now this is not the right policy. The correct policy is socialized insurance, contrary to popular belief. And it's not a bad thing to say that because Medicare for all is very popular. So rather than saying, oh, of course, I don't support socialized medicine. Why aren't Democrats challenging Donald Trump? Why don't you support socialized insurance? What do you say to the 68,000 Americans who die every single year because they don't have health insurance? And that was before COVID-19. So the number is probably larger now. What do you say to them? What's your answer? Why don't you have a health care plan? Why is it that Democrats always play defense, but never play offense? Now we know the answer to that. It's because the health industry was betting on Joe Biden to save the country from Bernie Sanders giving us Medicare for all. So we know that his donors want to allow him to support Medicare for all. But even if you support your half-measure in a public option, you won't even like embrace that on stage. You run away from that. It's just poor strategy. And look, I'll be fair and even criticize Bernie Sanders because it's not just popular policies that you shouldn't run away from. You shouldn't run away from good policy altogether. So on the issue of reparations at the beginning of the Democratic Party primaries, you know, Bernie Sanders got caught up on this. He wouldn't necessarily give us a clear answer when it comes to reparations because he didn't support it because, you know, I don't know if that was something that he just genuinely was against or he viewed it as deeply unpopular because back in 2015 or 2016, he said it was divisive. But here's the thing. If you make the case to the American people, oftentimes they will be receptive to that. In the same way that Bernie Sanders made Medicare for all popular, he could have popularized reparations. Because I think that if Americans understand what's at stake and why the wealth gap between black Americans and white Americans has to be closed and it's owed to them legally and morally, I think that people would be inclined to listen. But because we're so afraid about what the Republicans are going to say because we never know how to play offense, we always have to try to anticipate what Republicans are going to say when that's not good politics. Republicans policies are deeply, deeply unpopular. I mean, back in 2017 and 2018, when they were trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Republicans proposed their own, I don't even know what to call it, it was like a pseudo health care reform bill that was garbage and it had like a 10 to 15 percent approval rating if I'm remembering correctly. Did they run away from that? No. Even though they lost that battle ultimately, they were firmly committed to that plan. They never once ran away from it. All Republicans were disciplined and, you know, they tried to get Democrats to explain why they didn't support their shitty plan. And this is what you have to do. Even if your plan is a bad plan, like it's not popular, you never run away from what you propose because it makes you look weak. And that's why Republicans are so effective because, you know, at that debate with Mike Pence, the way he talked about certain policies, he made it seem as if everyone is Republican. Everyone agrees with the conservative position. Now, Americans may self-identify as conservatives, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are conservative in practice because by and large, when you look at the issues individually, progressive policies are incredibly popular. But the way that Mike Pence spoke at that vice presidential debate, he made it seem as if it's a no-brainer to support the conservative position. When I mean abortion, for example, even if Americans wouldn't get an abortion themselves, they admit that it is a necessity to have abortion be legal and safe because I think that Americans are smart enough to realize that just banning abortion outright, that's not going to stop abortions. You're just going to lead to a situation where we're seeing more unsafe, illegal abortions. So I mean, don't be afraid to explain your position and educate people, but never run away from your position. And that's what Democrats have to get through their heads. Never ever run away from your position. And that's what I want to say about this because it's so frustrating that we live in a situation where there's so much potential. Republicans are yearning for progressive policies and even the half-measures, Democrats won't stick by them. They'll run away from them. And it's just, it's so frustrating to me. Stop playing defense, put Republicans on offense, replicate the tactics that they use at debates.